Yahrzeit
by starfishstar
Summary: On 31 October, 1997, Remus and Tonks light candles.


**Notes:** In my long, still-being-written Remus-and-Tonks story, I'd already written a while ago about Remus on Halloween during Order of the Phoenix, and now I've reached the point in the story of writing about Remus on Halloween during Half-Blood Prince. Which of course made me wonder, what about Remus and Tonks on Halloween during Deathly Hallows? Thus, this.

I'd just like to note that yes, yahrzeit candles are a Jewish tradition, and no, so far as we know neither Remus nor Tonks is Jewish (though they could be, I suppose!) But I'm Jewish myself, and I have no problem with these characters adopting this tradition in the respectful way they do here.

This story comes to you courtesy of another thoughtful beta-reading by stereolightning.

And the characters belong to J.K. Rowling!

– – – – –

Over breakfast on the morning of October the 30th, Tonks said, "I do know what tomorrow is. And I'd like to help you, you know, commemorate. If you want me to."

Fork suspended in the air above his eggs, Remus just looked at her in surprise. They were at the tiny table of their tiny flat and Remus had made her breakfast, as he generally did these days. It was a small thing he could do.

When he didn't say anything, Tonks continued, "I've been researching memorial rites in different cultures – there's a Jewish tradition I like a lot, where you light a special candle that's made so it will burn for at least 24 hours. You know, so that it definitely covers the entire day." She tilted her head at Remus. "Do you want me to go on, or should I just shut up?"

Remus blinked at her. "No. I wouldn't ever want you to shut up."

Tonks' sombre expression gave way to a grin and she waved her fork at him. "Okay, someday you're going to regret having said that to me." Then she looked at him seriously again. "But really, do you want me around? Or do you want to be alone?"

Remus thought about the previous year, marking that day whilst living amongst the werewolves, with no one there who had known James and Lily or why they mattered. He thought of two years ago, the first and last time he had spent that day with Sirius. He thought of all the lonely years that had come before that.

"I'd like you to be there," he said.

– – – – –

On the evening of October the 30th, Tonks burst back into the flat a little after dusk, a brown paper bag clutched in one hand.

Having in equal parts been pushed out and gone willingly away from the now entirely corrupt Ministry, these days she gave the Order of the Phoenix the benefit of her full-time attention. And as a lover of fieldwork and detester of deskwork, she had made it quite clear to the Order's other members that she would be continuing to take an active role for absolutely as long as the pregnancy still allowed.

That meant surveillance, reconnaissance, guard duties, all the sorts of things she'd always done for the Order as a sideline to her day job, only more of it. Remus wasn't crazy about her putting herself in the line of danger, but then, he'd never been crazy about that. And he was the one who'd made the choice to marry an Auror, so he wasn't exactly going to complain. But if he could take on the more sedentary tasks for the Order that allowed him to be here, keeping their home and making sure she actually ate proper meals, all the better.

Tonks dropped her outer cloak in a puddle by the door, a habit Remus despaired of ever breaking her of, and secretly doubted he actually wanted to break her of.

She came straight to where he sat, elbow-deep in documents at the table in the corner that passed as the kitchen of their tiny flat, and leaned down to kiss him.

Remus shook himself free of the work he was immersed in and focussed his attention on threading one hand through her hair and kissing her back.

"Hi," she said, and smiled.

"Hi," he said back, holding on a little longer than he might usually have.

She rested one hand lightly on the top of his head. "I came straight back, except for stopping to get these." She waved the brown paper bag. "Do you want to see?" She looked a little uncertain, now, despite her enthusiasm that morning.

"Yes, of course. Here, sit down." He swept the scrolls of parchment aside as best he could. The Order could wait, for one night.

Tonks set the paper bag down in front of him, scooted the other chair around to Remus' side of the small table and sat down next to him. Then she unfurled the crinkled top of the bag and withdrew two small, squat, white candles inside plain cylinders of glass. She set them on the table in front of Remus.

"I thought about getting one for Sirius, too," she said. "But we'll do this again for him, at the right time. If you want."

Remus nodded. "That sounds good," he said, because Tonks seemed to need reassurance that he didn't mind her getting involved in his mourning, and Remus hated that he could never seem to find the words to tell her that just her being there was the greatest gift of all.

"What do you, um, what do you usually do? On the 31st?" she asked.

"Try to get drunk enough not to remember," Remus said.

Tonks laughed once, then stopped. "Oh," she said. "You're serious." She looked at him more closely. "I've hardly ever even seen you drink."

He rubbed his forehead. "That's because you've never seen me on the 31st of October."

Remus reached out and touched one finger lightly to each of the candles she had brought him. One for James. One for Lily.

"Dora," he said. "I'm not going to be a very happy person tomorrow. Are you sure you want to be around for this?"

Those words seemed to solidify Tonks, bring back her usual self-possession. "Tomorrow starts this evening," she said firmly. "And yes, I'm sure."

She turned on her chair so that she was nearly facing him, despite being seated side by side, and put her hand on top of his where it rested on the table. Remus looked at their joined hands. Holding hands across a table, an echo of so many other times they had held hands across so many other tables, over the long course of trying to figure out their complicated and entwined lives.

"Okay," he said. "Tell me how this works."

"Not much to tell. You light the candle after sunset, which was, er, a bit ago actually, and let it burn without being blown out for 24 hours, until tomorrow evening. The flame represents the person you're remembering, their – soul, or being, or however you want to think of it. That's it, really. I guess I just liked it as a concrete way of remembering someone. And the way this one little candle burns through a whole day."

Remus wanted to ask, _How is it that you are so good, that you can offer up your kindness to me, even after these last months?_ He said, "Will you light them with me?"

Her eyebrows arched in surprise. "You want me to? I never even knew them."

He nodded and reached for his wand, nudging her arm to encourage her to do the same. "Yes. Please."

She gave his hand a little squeeze, then released it, so she could pull out her own wand. Remus slid one of the candles over so it was in front of her.

He looked at the little white cylinder still in front of him and thought of James, his sly grin, the careless way he would dangle his glasses from one hand as he rakishly ruffled his own hair with the other.

He thought of James waltzing with Lily in their living room to music apparently only the two of them could hear, both of them laughing so raucously that any actual music probably wouldn't have been audible anyway.

He thought of James saying, _Well, really, what else did you think we were going to do with our spare time, mate? _in the moment immediately after the three of them had practically given Remus a heart attack demonstrating their new Animagus forms.

He thought of James with Harry in his arms, crooning in some kind of made-up language while Lily crashed out on the sofa and caught a few minutes of sleep, James looking up over the tufts of the baby's hair to catch Remus' eye and smile as if to say, _Isn't this the best thing you've ever seen?_

Remus held the tip of his wand to the candle and said, "_Incendio_." A soft little flame sprang to life, dancing around the wick.

"That one's for James," he said. "Would you light Lily's?"

Tonks glanced sideways at him, checking that he meant it.

"Please," he said again.

She nodded, and set the tip of her wand against the other candle's wick. She breathed in softly, a long, slow inhale. Remus thought of Lily, how she could communicate so much with a single flick of her wrist or lift of her eyebrow.

He thought of Lily bent over a cauldron, utterly absorbed and nearly motionless, often for hours at a time, reaching up absently to brush away the wisps of hair that escaped to curl around her face in the heat of the steam rising off her half-made potion.

He thought of Lily straightening Sirius' dress robe collar in the last moments before the leaving ceremony on their last day at Hogwarts, smiling and teasing him in that particular way only she had ever got quite away with.

He thought, as he often had, that Lily and Tonks would have got on so well that he sometimes fancied he could hear the conversations the two of them would have.

"_Incendio_," Tonks said, and Lily's flame danced to life.

Remus lay his wand down on the table and reached for Tonks' hand.

"Remus," she said, and then she was in his arms, awkwardly half in his lap and half standing. He pulled her to him as tightly as he could.

He thought about his two irredeemable mistakes, marrying her, then abandoning her after he'd married her. He'd feverishly thought the one could cancel out the other. It hadn't.

"I'm sorry," he said into her shoulder.

The only answer he got was a little half-sniff, half-hiccough.

Remus pulled back just enough so he could see Tonks' face. "Are you… Dora, why are you crying?"

Tonks almost never cried. He'd seen her do so only a handful of times, if that.

She shrugged and hiccoughed and scrubbed at her eyes with the back of one hand. "I don't know." Embarrassed now, she made to stand, but Remus kept holding on. They sat like that for a bit, wrapped around each other.

"Well," he said at last. "Don't be sad on my account. I have everything I could ever have wanted."

He felt her start of surprise, and looked up to find her eyebrows practically disappearing into her hair.

"Everything?" she repeated.

He knew what she was thinking. The friends he'd lost, the opportunities he'd never had. The curse of the moon from which he would never be free.

He thought of Harry, out there somewhere, with no one left to keep him safe. Remus thought of his own, rightly rejected, offer to try to be that person.

He thought about this endless war and how very little, in the end, each of them could really do.

So, all right, maybe not everything. But still far more than he could ever have dared to ask for.

"Yes," he said. "I wouldn't trade this for anything."

She sighed against his shoulder, seeming to melt further into him. Her breath was warm and reassuring against his neck.

"Come on," Remus said. "Are you hungry?"

They ate dinner that night with the candles shedding soft light beside them.

– – – – –

The morning of October 31, Remus woke to Tonks' hair, still a sleepy brown, tickling his nose. When he looked up, the first thing he saw was the two candles, still flickering gently where they'd left them on the small table beside the bed.

It was October 31. Remus was alive, and he was not alone.

He watched the candles. Seeing them brought back the memories he'd gathered to himself the evening before. Happy memories, thoughts of the good times, not just the bad ones. Thoughts of Tonks next to him, lighting Lily's candle and holding his hand.

He must have shifted or made a noise, because he felt Tonks start to come awake beside him. She opened her eyes and saw him, and her hair shifted slowly to pink.

"What have I done to deserve you?" he whispered.

Tonks' body jerked into full wakefulness.

"Stop it," she said fiercely. "Just stop it, Remus." She shoved herself up on one elbow, the better to transfix him with the intensity of her stare. "I can take almost anything, I can take your panic, and your leaving, but I can't stand this constant _doubt_."

She glared at him, truly angry. "If you want, I'll tell you every single day how loved you are, I don't mind it at all, but don't make me justify myself over and over. Don't pull this 'I am not worthy' crap on me anymore. Just don't."

Remus stared back at her with no idea what to say. He knew the damage he'd caused. He'd expected the anger. But he was still not prepared for the hurt he saw in her face in moments like these.

She flopped back down next to him, the anger drained away again as fast as it had come.

"Sorry," she said at the ceiling. "Today of all days. I should wait until tomorrow if I'm going to be cross with you."

"No," he said. "No. Dora… Don't – don't stop telling me when I'm wrong. I need you to tell me those things."

She nodded at the ceiling. "Yeah, okay. Still, I'm sorry. Now's not the time."

Remus watched her profile. "How about… Different question. How can I ever make it up to you? If such a thing is even possible?"

She knew exactly what "it" meant, of course.

"Well, don't leave again, for starters," she said, with an attempt at a laugh.

"I won't."

"I know you won't." Her hand snaked across the space between them and found his. "You've made that very clear. Thank you for that." She turned now, flopping back around so she was facing him again. "I don't know, Remus. There's no one thing that makes everything all right, or not all right. Just keep being here. Keep letting me in."

"Okay."

She smiled at him, a small smile, but real. "Remus Lupin's great life project: learning to let people in."

"Hey now." He smiled back at her, warm with relief that she was teasing him again. There had been too little teasing in their life together this autumn. His fault, of course. But then, that he should stop labelling everything with his fault and blame was precisely the point she'd been making in the first place.

"And maybe you could start trying to forgive yourself," Tonks said softly, in an eerie echo of his own thoughts. "I think I have a fair idea what you're running away from so hard every October, but it's not your fault, Remus. It's not your fault about James and Lily. It was a war, just like it's a war now, and a whole lot of awful things happened that you wish you could have known about in time to stop them, but that's not how it works. I wish you could forgive yourself."

He squeezed her hand in his. He looked past her shoulder to the two little candles she had brought him and lit with him the night before. There were no words that would sum up the gratitude and the love he felt for this woman lying next to him. _What have I done to deserve you?_ had seemed to get the closest, but he would try not to ask that anymore.

Instead he said, "You're so good to me. Thank you."

Tonks seemed to accept that. She scooted in towards him so she could lean her head on his shoulder. He kissed her hair. She turned it blue, apparently just to spite him.

He chuckled.

She draped an arm over his chest, accepting this truce. "What are your plans for the day?" she asked. "I assume you've got more Order stuff?"

He nodded, knowing she would feel the motion, even if she couldn't see him from where she lay. "I promised to get through the rest of those documents Arthur sent over. What about you?"

"Kingsley wanted to meet, but I told him I wasn't sure if I could do today. I didn't know whether you'd want to be alone, or want someone around…?"

He leaned his cheek against her hair again. "No, it's fine. I really do have a lot to do. Go and meet Kingsley."

"I'll be back before evening," she said.

"That would be nice."

She lifted her head and looked over towards the bedside table. "And your candles will burn all day, anyway."

"Our candles," Remus said.

"Our candles will burn all day. And I'll be back before they burn down."

"All right."

Tonks looked back at him. "You'll be okay today?"

"Yes, I think I'll be fine."

What a strange thing to be able to say about this particular day.

The James inside his head seemed to nod in approval. _Yeah_, he seemed to say. _Go on and do whatever you need to do. In some ways, today is just another day._

Meanwhile, the Lily in his head turned to the Tonks in his head and said, _You know, I never would have believed it, but you've worked wonders on our old Moony._

It made Remus smile to think of them, taking up space all together there in his mind.

"Remus?" Tonks' voice broke into his thoughts.

"Yes?"

"Sorry, but I'm _starving_. How about breakfast?"

He smiled and squeezed her tightly for just another moment. "Yes. Coming right up."

– – – – –

The End


End file.
